


What's It's Done to Me

by minnabird



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Gen, Songfic, Suicide, mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:27:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock weren't introduced to each other. Separate and alone, they face the consequences of what never was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's It's Done to Me

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS/WARNINGS. This story is potentially triggery.

I sit alone in my flat, straight-backed, feet flat on the floor because it gives me some feeling at least of being anchored in this world, instead of a ghost. That’s what it feels like, cliché as it sounds: I’m a ghost of John Watson right now. Everyone expects me to go back to the old John, is trying to bring me back to that, but I’ve changed so much, become so much _more_ since I left England. I can never go back. I don’t _want_ to go back.

The person I’ve worked towards being since I was still a kid, really…he’s gone. I put so much work into it. Years’ worth: studying, getting my degree, training to be in the RAMC. I’m not sure who I am without the army. I’m not sure there even is a me, anymore. Not really.

England, civilian life – they seem so pale next to what I’ve been used to. No one ever talks about enjoying war, not where anyone can hear, but God do I miss it sometimes. The fear/wonder, about to die-not dying-so alive.

At the same time, war was worse than anything I could have expected or imagined. It erupts unbidden into my dreams sometimes, and it’s all I can do not to fly apart at the pain. But I cling to that, too, because the pain makes me feel real. My heart, my shoulder, my leg: they tie me to this world, just as the feeling of the solid floor beneath my feet does.

Life stretches out ahead of me, grey and full of sharp edges, and it seems like the worst sentence possible. Death I accepted long ago; it’s the living that I never could have prepared for.

Every day is the same, and it’s beginning to look as if every day _will_ be the same. How many days till I die? If I live to a ripe old age? Thousands upon thousands, surely, and every single fucking one the same. I want to curl up as small as I can at the thought, but if I take my feet off the floor I’m afraid I’ll lose what tenuous grasp on the world that I have.

If things don’t change soon, I don’t know what I’ll do.

* * *

Dull.

Everything is dull. I’ve been without a case for weeks, and the search for a flatmate has not gone as expected. Mike is a sociable man and likes to do people favors. It makes him feel better about himself - validates his existence when he’s surrounded by students who will surpass him within a few years’ time. I thought for certain he would be able to find someone. One of his students, perhaps; medical students must have a certain tolerance for what others might find repulsive, and the best are hard to unnerve, keep their heads in difficult situations. With my lifestyle, such characteristics would be ideal.

It appears that I’ve miscalculated, though. I’ll have to keep my flat in Montague Street after all.

God, but it’s all so _hateful!_ I can distract myself for brief moments between cases, but nothing keeps me occupied for long, and when I run out of distractions my brain chases itself in circles, pulling apart thoughts until they’re no more than pulpy fragments clinging to the corners of my skull, no longer decipherable as anything in the least meaningful. Where are the serial killers? Where are the clever thieves, the embezzlers and frauds and confidence tricksters? A mildly intelligent housebreaker would do me, at this point. But there’s nothing. The criminal classes appear to have taken a collective holiday.

Perhaps I should leave London. Maybe elsewhere in the world there are criminals who are doing interesting things. I’d have to build up new contacts; that might occupy me for a bit, trying to find the ideal in to the police force. It took me two weeks of observation before I settled on Lestrade (just desperate enough, and just clever enough, and just a bit willing to bend the rules). I’d have to establish a new network of informants as well. Mycroft would undoubtedly send agents to keep tabs on me, but I would be free from the company of the man himself. He’s too busy to leave the country on personal matters.

The idea has some merit. If London continues its utter drought of interesting cases, I may well take that course of action.

* * *

I still haven’t found work. Well, that’s not true exactly. I keep applying, then they’ll have a look over my CV and most of the time they’ll accept me…and then I can’t go through with it. Can’t resign myself to life as a general practitioner. I could work in A&E, but that doesn’t feel right either.

Even still, I’ve spent very little time in my apartment these last few months. I spend my days walking the streets of London. The city is alive. Walking among crowds of people, letting myself be lost in them, I almost feel alive too.

My savings are running out. I can’t afford central London on just my army pension. If I can’t find a flatmate soon, I’ll have to get a job, qualms or no. Or I could leave, go back to Chelmsford. That would make Mum happy. She’s been at me to come home, at least for a few days, for ages. She reckons being back in my childhood home would help somehow. It’s sweet of her, but she doesn’t understand what the problem is, and I can’t bear to tell her.

There’s no solution that doesn’t fill me with dread. Even had I enough money to stay here, I feel like a boat that’s sprung a leak. I keep pushing the pain away, hoping it’ll stay away, but it works less and less and soon it’s going to come flooding in.

When that happens, I know I’ll drown.

* * *

Serial suicides. So the news channels have been saying, anyway. How delightfully wrong they are. They’re murders, of course, and the killer is a clever one. Love the clever ones.

I’m on the chase again, blood pounding in my veins, mind fully occupied: sorting through information, finding links, patterns. It’s a stimulating puzzle. The best one in ages. It’s like a high, better than cocaine ever was (but so much harder to find), lifting me so far above the dreariness of the interval between cases.

I’m not thinking about the crash later, just soaring along, synapses afire. _This_ is life.

* * *

I went down the pub with Bill Murray tonight.

He’s happy. Over the moon. He and his wife are having a baby.

How the hell can he be so happy, when he came out of Afghanistan worse than I did? When he nearly lost his mobility, is still working on gaining it back even to the degree I’ve regained mine, all to save my life?

I’ve had a few drinks, and it’s knocked down all my walls. The guilt and envy and anger and fear that I’ll never be happy like that, and oh god, the _pain_ , they’re all flooding in. Swirling around inside me. A maelstrom to my pathetic little dinghy, and I’m falling to pieces.

I stumble towards my desk (oh God, my leg, what the fuck did I do with my cane between the door and here) and open the drawer where I keep my gun.

This isn’t life. I left the war, but nothing will ever bring me peace. I reach inside, feel the cool metal of the gun in my hand, its solid weight as I raise it.

I’ve never felt more alive.

* * *

I’ve chosen wrong.

I realize that the moment I swallow the pill and see the triumph on the cabbie’s face. I don’t know how he fooled me. I was utterly certain of my choice. A nearly impossible puzzle, some would say, but I’ve studied game theory, and I know how my opponent’s mind works. So how can he have fooled me?

It must be some failure of logic along the way. But I can’t think. Breathing is getting harder as the pill begins to take effect. I lean forward, against the table, unable to sit up straight. The muscles in my chest strain as I try to draw in air, but nothing happens, and I’m choking as my vision clouds and lungs burn for lack of oxygen.

I’ll be dead within seconds, and the only thing I can think is that I’ve failed.

* * *

This is me, giving up.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this by my RP friends from Tarchwud, and the basic premise was something we came up with as a group as what should have happened except that parallel universes merged and John and Sherlock met when they really shouldn't have. It's...my first time dealing with serious issues like this, so I'm really nervous, but the story just wanted to be written. Also, this is sort of a songfic to When I Wake Up Tomorrow by The Perishers (from which I drew the title), but only very loosely so.


End file.
